next »

[bclikesyou]

Got a new dialogue system up and running. Will be much quicker than the system I used in the demo. Also looks a lot better. Getting the sprite font to look good in a lo-res game (256x144) was a bit tricky. Had to manually set the width of those l's and i's.

And now I finally get to move on to level design for level 2. Chugging along!

[TheArtistJiii]

Quaint little project. Any plans to monetize this?

[TheArtistJiii]

Color me pink, but i liked the previous look of the robot, particularly the wide head.

EDIT: I played the Demo and i enjoyed it. It sort of inspired me honestly. Thanks.

[bclikesyou]

Quaint little project. Any plans to monetize this?

Thanks! I actually consider "quaint" to be an incredibly accurate term :D

I'm wrapping up Level 2 right now and then the plan is to try and push it through the Greenlight process.

Color me pink, but i liked the previous look of the robot, particularly the wide head.

EDIT: I played the Demo and i enjoyed it. It sort of inspired me honestly. Thanks.

I had issues with the previous design of the robot because it felt a bit too thin for me. Controlling them didn't feel right. I didn't necessarily dislike the art design; just the feel on moving it around. Regardless, I appreciate you trying it out and glad it inspired you. Drop a line anytime if you wanna talk shop!

[bclikesyou]

Started in on level design. My process goes like this:

• Draw the flow/direction of each screen
• Draw a rough layout of each screen. This mean the jumps, obstacles, barriers, enemies, triggers, etc.
• Over in Construct, place the ground, walls, and obstacles. Do a test playthrough. Revise as needed.
• Place enemies, triggers, and powerups. Do a test playthrough. Revise as needed.
• Place all art tiles.

Here is a sketch of the "flow" of the level. It's a pretty linear platformer, but I do like to have little off-paths.

[bclikesyou]

Level 2-1 tilemap! Such a satisfying and rewarding point to be at 

The backgrounds on the bottom have parallax scrolling and following the player through the level (that's why they don't cover the whole background). I'll be doing 4 screens total for level 2. I'll post them as they're completed.

[th3shark]

I really get a kick out of hand-drawn level plans on graph paper.  It's pretty neat comparing your recent 2-1 screenshot to what you planned out on paper to see how it evolved.

From the screenshot it looks like some areas are walled off.  I assume that's part of the background, but in-game it might be confusing since their tilesets are so similar to the tilesets of the tangible platforms.

[bclikesyou]

From the screenshot it looks like some areas are walled off.  I assume that's part of the background, but in-game it might be confusing since their tilesets are so similar to the tilesets of the tangible platforms.

Thanks that's an excellent point. Those are supposed to be trees and I should probably make them darker as to avoid confusion!

[bclikesyou]

Level 2-3 (backgrounds and decorations hidden)

This uses the cave tileset as seen in the gifs above. One more map and I'm set for Level 2. Then I just need to set up dialogue triggers and the boss room.

[bclikesyou]

It's been a few weeks but I've been hard at work!

Last weekend I showed off my demo at the Buffalo Game Space Showcase. Got great feedback and hung out with a bunch of other great WNY game devs. Here was my setup:

Looks like another week or two and I should wrap up Level 2. Currently I'm scripting all dialogue events and working on cutscenes. I made the decision to try and do still-frame cutscenes especially since the game is quickly getting story heavy.

Made some huge progress this weekend. As I have mentioned, I've been using a dialogue asset from the Construct 2 store. Over the weekend I realized and learned how to use the text commands which lets me script events from within the dialogue. So basically I can type the dialogue and then type something like {BossActivate} which calls a function to activate my boss or any other event. This is incredibly handy. I cannot recommend this asset enough if you're using Construct 2. It's a steal for the price.

Here is the Level 2 Boss reveal. Don't worry; it'll be more difficult than pictured in the gif 



Up next is drawing up the cutscenes, finishing the dialogue script, and setting up all keycard / door functions in the layouts for Level 2. Then on to Greenlight!

[bclikesyou]

Starting work on cutscenes. Here is one of the more basic ones. Text will scroll along the bottom. These are definitely going to push my art skills. Time to get good!

[bclikesyou]

Early Saturday morning game dev hustle at the coffee shop

All cutscene art for Level 2 is done. All dialogue is written. Now working on how to best initiate the cutscenes and hop back to the actual game layout. Should be able to wrap this up this weekend.

[bclikesyou]

Got that sweet cut scene fade working!

[Silkworm]

I tried the demo and gameplay felt nice and solid. Graphics and sound too! Nothing new of course but that wasn't the point either. Pressing "B" for the dialogue was a bit awkward but maybe it's different in your new system?


I thought this was a gun for the longest time . Didn't even try to shoot before I picked it up and then by trying every key. Just a little prompt or something explaining the basic controls would be nice.

I came in to this knowing that a "retro platformer" isn't anything new, so I decided that the story would be the main focus and driving force. Plus this is a low-pressure first game.

Yeah I think it's good not to start too big. I'm doing pretty much the same thing with my game. I do enjoy a nice story too and think it's fun to write as well. Looking forward to see where the story goes.

[bclikesyou]

I tried the demo and gameplay felt nice and solid. Graphics and sound too! Nothing new of course but that wasn't the point either. Pressing "B" for the dialogue was a bit awkward but maybe it's different in your new system?


I thought this was a gun for the longest time . Didn't even try to shoot before I picked it up and then by trying every key. Just a little prompt or something explaining the basic controls would be nice.

I came in to this knowing that a "retro platformer" isn't anything new, so I decided that the story would be the main focus and driving force. Plus this is a low-pressure first game.

Yeah I think it's good not to start too big. I'm doing pretty much the same thing with my game. I do enjoy a nice story too and think it's fun to write as well. Looking forward to see where the story goes.

Hey thanks for checking out the demo!

I've already changed around the controls a bit and streamlined things. I'm also adding a tutorial for the opening scene where you walk through all the controls. A lot of playtesters never figure you that you can shoot  

[bclikesyou]

LEVEL 2 IS DONE!

Check out the video.

Turn up for the music because this song is very important to me. As I've posted about before, some 12-13 years I was in a band called Tomorrow is Forever. We had a full length album that had music videos for every song telling the story of 2 game developers. We'd play the music live with the videos in sync with us. We wrote this song the first summer we all stayed in our college town together. When we had a rough demo, we brought it to our friend's house and we listened to it for the first time together. It was an incredible moment and it is immortalized for me in the form of this song.

Thanks for reading this far! I'll be launching my Steam Greenlight campaign the first week of August.

[bclikesyou]

That coffee shop dev life

I decided that, since a bunch of people will most likely download my demo when I launch on Steam Greenlight, that I should probably update it. Here is what I managed to do this weekend to the Level 1 demo:

• Updated controls
• WASD or Arrow key controls
• Keycard "have" indicator
• No more doorways. All screen transitions are "edge of screen collision" types
• Moved all dialogue over to the new dialogue engine
• Began swapping out the "pure black" for a "softer black" in my tilesets

I've got a bit more to do but I should manage to finish the update by this weekend. Then on to Greenlight!

[Hephep]

I see your modifying the "black" of your game, can you tell me why? How do you proceed? i'm rarely satisfied with pure black when I draw sprites, I dunno why, I have the feelings that it won't blend well, I always play with hue and saturation and in my editor it don't affect pure black. I don't know if I should use a very dark blue instead...

[bclikesyou]

A Small Robot Story is live on Steam Greenlight! Click the image above to check it out and give it a vote!

Up next: Level 3 tilesets. Gotta keep moving ahead.

[bclikesyou]

I see your modifying the "black" of your game, can you tell me why? How do you proceed? i'm rarely satisfied with pure black when I draw sprites, I dunno why, I have the feelings that it won't blend well, I always play with hue and saturation and in my editor it don't affect pure black. I don't know if I should use a very dark blue instead...

The first level had a "true" black. No shades added to it. But in doing some research, I saw other pixel artists using "shaded black"; basically some shade of black with a small % of color added to it. I liked how it looked and did that with my level 2 tiles. I've since gone back and added it to my Level 1 tiles. It gives off a warmer look. Basically I set my black value to 100% and then add shades of the dominate colors of the level (light blue for Level 1, purple for Level 2 caves, etc.)

However I am outlining my object sprites (player, enemies, etc.) with a "true" black. I like how it makes them pop off the background.